


The Girlfriend Pillow (or The Night Anderson and Rachel Never Talk About)

by unquietspirit



Category: Pundit & Broadcast Journalist RPF (US), Real News RPF
Genre: Drunkenness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, FNFF SeSa 2012, Friendship, Gen, Platonic Kissing, Sharing a Bed, background PRT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 12:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unquietspirit/pseuds/unquietspirit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the SeSa wish <em>"I always wanted to know what it would be like to sleep with a girl," Anderson said <a href="http://andersoncooperfans.tumblr.com/post/35296488711/anderson-cooper-tries-the-girlfriend-pillow-i">when he tried the girlfriend pillow</a>.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Girlfriend Pillow (or The Night Anderson and Rachel Never Talk About)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarken/gifts).



"What do you drink?" Rachel asked grimly, almost before Anderson could finish saying 'hello' into the phone.  
  
"Uh... Coke Zero?"  
  
With obvious patience, she said, "Alcoholic."  
  
"Oh. Wine, mostly," Anderson said, hoping it wasn't really  _him_  she was annoyed at. "You okay?"  
  
"I'm...." She sighed and continued in a more relaxed tone, "I'm in your neighborhood and I need someone to drink with. Can I come over?"  
  
Anderson could count on one hand the number of times he's drank with Rachel, and all of them included Jon, Stephen, Keith, and some kind of party. "Sure."  
  
"Good. I'll find a liquor store and be right there."  
  
She disconnected before he could say he already had wine.  
  
  
The bell rang twenty minutes later. Molly padded behind him as he went downstairs, so he had to nudge her back before opening the door.  
  
"Hey," Rachel said. She was wearing a hoodie, jeans, sneakers, and her glasses, like ninety percent of the time Anderson saw her, but somehow she looked more disheveled than usual. As though she had slept in her clothes, maybe. She also had a reusable shopping bag in her hand, which she held up. "Not wine. I'm expanding your palate. Don't worry, it's nothing too scary."  
  
"Okay," Anderson said, his apprehension not limited to whatever was in the bag. "Come in." She stepped past him and crouched to pet Molly while he locked the door, then followed him up the staircase and into his kitchen. He flipped on the overhead light. "I hope whatever you're making doesn't require fancy equipment. I don't think I even have a cocktail shaker."  
  
"You live with a man who owns two bars, but you don't have a cocktail shaker," Rachel said, deadpan. "Speaking of which, where  _is_  Ben?"  
  
"Visiting his family for the week," Anderson said. He opened the cupboard where they kept the wine glasses, on the off chance that a shaker had suddenly materialized. "Shouldn't you be in Massachusetts with Susan?"  
  
When there was no answer, he glanced back over his shoulder at Rachel, and did a horrified double-take.  
  
She'd started to cry.  
  
He'd seen Rachel tear up on occasion, mostly out of happiness, but never proper crying. Her mouth went small and tight, like she was holding something in, and her chin trembled. She covered her face with both hands, letting the shopping bag slide down her forearm to hang from the crook of her elbow with a clink of bottles. "Fuck. I'm sorry," she said, voice cracking.  
  
Anderson gingerly put an arm around her shoulders and guided her over to one of the barstools, feeling completely inept. Interview subjects bursting into tears when talking about a tragedy he could handle, but this? "Um, here, sit down." She did. He stood next to her with his hand still on one of her shoulders in what he hoped was a comforting way and listened to her quiet, gasping breaths.  
  
After awhile, she gulped and uncovered her face, which was flushed pink and streaked with tears. She wiped them away one-handed, putting the bag on the counter in front of her with the other. "Sorry."  
  
" _I'm_  the one who should be apologizing."  
  
"You didn't know. And no, I don't want to talk about it. I just want to get drunk." She reached into the bag, pulled out a bottle, and thunked it down on the counter. "Sweet vermouth." Another bottle, another thunk. "Dry vermouth." Two lemons, which rolled away as she set them down. Anderson caught them before they fell onto the floor. "And a shot glass, because I couldn't find a jigger. I don't need precise measurements anyway; it's just equal parts sweet and dry with a lemon twist."  
  
Anderson wanted to say something helpful, like, 'hey, I'm sure it'll all work out okay,' or, 'I can recommend a great couples' therapist,' but Rachel had a closed-off, grim look, and he didn't quite dare. He settled on, "What else do you need?"  
  
"Two glasses of ice and a paring knife."  
  
He nodded and handed her the lemons before going to get them.  
  
  
The cocktail, she told him, was called the Perfect ("Any cocktail with vermouth can be modified into a 'perfect' version by using equal parts sweet and dry, so you have 'perfect' Manhattans and so on, but this one is just  _the_ Perfect"), and it was good for wine-drinkers. Which meant Anderson liked it and Rachel deemed it good enough for the purposes of getting drunk. They took their glasses into his living room and pulled up old episodes of Ice Loves Coco and Jersey Shore on the TiVo.  
  
Anderson, predictably, got tipsy halfway through his first Perfect, giggling too much over everything while Rachel rolled her eyes at him. He slowed down after that, and Rachel went to get her third when he'd only barely started on his second. The couch was warm where she had been sitting. He slumped over sideways into it, thinking vague thoughts about sleep and the way his father's study smelled when he was a kid.  
  
"Ow! Shit!"  
  
He lifted his head enough to look over the arm of the couch toward the one corner of kitchen cabinetry that was visible from that angle. "You okay?"  
  
"I cut myself," Rachel called back. "Do you have band-aids?"  
  
"Yeah, they're...." He gestured, before realizing she couldn't see him. "They're in the.... Hang on, I'll get them." The light-headedness wasn't as bad as expected when he stood up, but he still moved cautiously. "Molly, stay here."  
  
Rachel was running cold water over her thumb, the paring knife and lemon lying in the sink where she presumably had dropped them. "I hate it when I do that," she said. "The lemon oil always gets in it and stings like a motherfucker."  
  
Anderson took the first aid kit out, glad they kept it in a drawer and not one of the cabinets, because he wasn't sure how reaching up or bending over would agree with him just then. "Do you do it often?" he asked as he brought it over to her.  
  
"Often enough. I'm amazed I haven't done it during a Cocktail Moment on the show yet."  
  
"Then I'd have to put you on the Ridiculist like Jon," Anderson said, smiling.  
  
"Mmm," she agreed absently, peering at her thumb. "I think the bleeding's stopped. Can you help me with the band-aid?"  
  
He peeled one open and carefully applied it to the cut. As he wrapped the ends around, Rachel made a small, choked noise.  
  
"Sorry, did that hurt?"  
  
"No." She looked away, pressing her lips together. "It's just... it's usually Susan who...."  
  
"Oh," he said, and then stood there, holding her hand loosely, not sure what to do next.  
  
There were a few long seconds of silence, which Rachel broke with, "Let's finish watching Jersey Shore."  
  
  
Some time after they started drinking the vermouth straight from the bottles -- sweet for him, dry for her -- she said, "This is going to sound completely cliche, but maybe I should give up on women for awhile.  _You_  do fine with men, right?"  
  
"I do okay," he agreed. "There's less...." He paused, searching for a difference that wouldn't get him called out for stereotyping. "You don't have to worry about someone menstruating. Which, for the record,  _ew_."  
  
She snorted into his bicep. They were lying in a disorganized heap, Rachel's long legs curled up behind her, Anderson's feet buried under Molly on the floor. One of the Jersey Shore kids was puking. Anderson considered it a good sign that the sight of it didn't make him want to follow suit.  
  
"But how would you know you could... y'know, do it?"  
  
" _Do_  it?" Rachel asked, snorting again. "What are you, twelve?"  
  
"Not just sex," he clarified. "Any of it. I've never even kissed a girl."  
  
"And you think you'd gag?"  
  
He shrugged. "I don't know, is the point. Have you ever?"  
  
"Oh, I've kissed plenty of girls!" she said, and he punched her shoulder.  
  
"You know what I meant!"  
  
"It's not that different, Anderson. Here, I'll show you." She shifted and cupped her hand behind his neck, drawing him closer until he could feel her breath on his lips. Then she paused, giving him a chance to pull back. He didn't.  
  
And, yeah, it wasn't that different, if he ignored the way her glasses clacked against his and the absence of stubble scraping his chin when she angled her head. The mechanics were the same, as was the warm, wet feeling of another tongue sliding into his mouth. It was fairly pleasant, as kisses went.  
  
"See?" she said, still close enough for him to feel the word as well as hear it. "No one got cooties."  
  
"Not bad." There were light amber flecks visible in her eyes at this distance, he noticed absently. "But I think that's my cue to stop drinking for the night, in the interest of not making this weird. Weirder."  
  
Rachel laughed and leaned over him to grab her bottle of vermouth off the end table.  
  
  
"You'll have to stay here tonight," Anderson said, well into the small hours of the morning. He was mostly sober again, but Rachel was decidedly  _not_ , and he was wary about sending her out alone, even in a cab.  
  
"Yeah, okay. Okay. I'll just...crash in your guest room."  
  
"Uh, the thing is, I don't have a guest room."  
  
She stared at him. "Anderson. It's a four-story firehouse." To prove this, she pointed at the remaining pole on that floor. Anderson nodded his agreement, and she continued, "There must be, what, sixteen rooms or something? And not one of them is a guest room?"  
  
"What can I say, we're antisocial."  
  
"Okay, well," -- she slouched deeper into the cushions -- "I don't mind the couch."  
  
"This couch kills  _my_  back, and you have three inches on me," Anderson protested. "Look, we'll just share the bed. I promise to keep my hands to myself."  
  
"S'bit late for that," she said, laughing.  
  
"Hey, you're the one who started it."  
  
At that, Rachel leaned closer and whispered, "So maybe I'll finish it," and suddenly Anderson wasn't entirely sure if she was joking.  
  
"Oh-kaaay, time for bed. To sleep, I mean," he said, quickly standing up.  
  
"Sleep," Rachel said, like it was a new, interesting concept to her. "Yes. Um. I might need your help getting upstairs, though."  
  
They managed it, slowly, with Rachel first, Anderson behind her in case she fell, and Molly following him. He dug out a spare toothbrush and a set of pajamas for her to change into and left her in the bathroom with stern orders to sit down and yell for him if she started to feel woozy, but she knocked on his bedroom door five minutes later without incident.  
  
A giggle escaped him when he opened it; the pajama pants stopped well above her ankles and the top hung off her shoulders. Casually flipping him off, she stepped into the room and asked, "Which side is mine?"  
  
"I'm usually on the left," he said, then, "No, your other left."  
  
"Shut up."  
  
"You're very abusive to your bedmates," he observed, before immediately wishing he could take it back.  
  
Rachel, however, seemed not to have noticed. She climbed under the covers and instantly fell into the deep sleep of the very inebriated.  
  
  
The first thing Anderson noticed in the morning was that the body pressed up against his was soft in places he wasn't used to. The second thing he noticed was that the first thing hadn't made any difference in his own body's response. Slowly, he blinked his eyes open and found himself looking at Rachel's right ear.  
  
 _That's... odd._  
  
"Y'know, normally," she said, voice muffled with sleep and Ben's pillow, "this would be a terribly embarrassing situation for me, but thankfully I'm still drunk enough not to care."  
  
"Fuck, Rachel, I'm sorry," he said, jerking away from her. "It doesn't- I mean, not that you-"  
  
"It's fine." She sounded like she meant it, but Anderson still felt like he'd been caught feeling her up. Or, well, like he'd been caught with his erection poking her hip. " _Really_ ," she added, twisting to look at him over her shoulder. "It's just a natural physical reaction, like how the sound of running water makes you need to pee more. Speaking of which...." She rolled onto her feet, rubbed her hair into an even worse state of disarray, and walked out, leaving Anderson to imagine his great-aunt Melba eating without her dentures.  
  
  
She was wearing her own clothes again when she rejoined him in the kitchen as he was measuring protein powder into the blender. "I think there's cereal in that cupboard, if you want some," he said, pointing.  
  
"No, thanks. I'll get something on the way home."  
  
"Oh, are you going out to Massachusetts?"  
  
She shook her head and leaned against the counter in a semblance of casualness. "The loft. Susan will've left by now, so. I should go."  
  
Gently, Anderson said, "Let me walk you out."  
  
Neither of them spoke until they were at the door, where Rachel gave an awkward laugh and said, "Well. It's been strange, but good. Thank you. And don't worry, I won't tell anyone we slept together."  
  
He smirked. "I don't think they'd believe you if you did."  
  
"Or that you kissed a girl and you liked it?"  
  
"Dammit," he said, groaning, "now I'm going to have that song stuck in my head for the rest of the day."  
  
Rachel grimaced. "Sorry. No one deserves that. I'll leave before I do any permanent damage."  
  
"Wait." Anderson caught her wrist before she could open the door and pulled her into a brief, crushing hug. Her chin had gone slightly wobbly again when he let go. "Call me if you need anything," he said. "Even if only to talk."  
  
She nodded.  
  
With a final goodbye, he let her out, locked the door behind her, and headed back upstairs, humming under his breath.


End file.
